Backyard Composting

Composting is a simple and effective way to reduce waste, save money, and improve the health of your garden. By composting yard waste and food scraps, you can create a nutrient rich amendment for your soil that will help your plants thrive.

And when you compost, you are taking waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill and turning it into a valuable resource for the garden. When organic material breaks down in a landfill, it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. So composting helps combat climate change by reducing the amount of methane gas released in the atmosphere.

Ready to get started? Composting at home is easy and doesn’t require much time or space.

First you need to decide what method will be best for you. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages so choose one that fits your yard and lifestyle. Here are the most common methods.

Common Methods:

• A Simple Pile – It is inexpensive and easy to start a pile anywhere in your yard. Some disadvantages are piles can be a bit messy (more spread out), require hand mixing, may attract pests, and likely will take longer to compost.
• Bins – These can be store bought or you can make your own with wood, wire, or plastic. They can be covered or open in any size to meet your needs, and they do a respectable job of containing the compost. They require hand mixing, may attract pests if not managed, and open bins will take longer to process.
• Tumblers – These are special containers that you can rotate to mix your compost. They are more expensive than other methods but can be an excellent choice for smaller yards. They are tidy, easy to mix, and keep rodents out. Most tumblers make rather small amounts of compost, and the larger units can be difficult to turn. Tumblers can often process compost faster than other methods.
• Lasagna Gardens and Hügelkulturs – This is a way to make compost directly in a planting bed with minimal effort. Compostables are layered in the bottom of a planting area, left to decompose over the winter, then topped with soil before planting. As the plants grow on top, they benefit by having the rich compost below. These methods may rob nitrogen from the live plants if the compost is not fully decomposed, so extra fertilizer may be needed in the first year of planting.

Once you have your compost pile, bin, or tumbler, you are ready to add your materials. To start composting, you will need a mix of “green” and “brown” organic material. Greens are things that are rich in nitrogen, like food scraps and grass clippings. Browns are materials that are rich in carbon, like dry leaves, twigs, and paper. A mix of 50% of each is a good place to start and you can adjust to add more brown material (up to around 70%) as needed. And you can add some soil or compost to help kickstart the composting process. You will also need to add water to keep your compost moist, but not soggy. This is where a covered bin comes in handy. Having a cover keeps the evaporation to a minimum. At the community garden we have large, uncovered bins so we use tarps to keep the piles moist and warm to speed decomposition.

It is a good idea to turn your pile every week or two to mix the materials and keep it aerated. Moisture and air keep the microorganisms and worms alive and active, which does wonders in helping speed up the composting process.

After several months, or even a year, your compost should be ready to use. You will know it is ready when it is dark, crumbly, and smells earthy. Many gardeners find it helpful to have more than one compost pile or bin. When one is full of plant material, cover it, keep it aerated and moist then start another pile while you wait for the first one to fully break down.

Important Tips for Success:

• Chop your waste material into smaller pieces to help them break down faster.
• Don’t compost meat, dairy, cooked or oily foods as they can attract pests. Too much fruit can also attract fruit flies and rodents.
• Avoid adding weeds, invasive plants, or diseased plants to your pile as they can spread throughout the garden via the finished compost.
• Avoid putting wax myrtle, holly, and other waxy leaves in compost (very slow to decompose!).
• Don’t worry about seeing slugs, snails, sow bugs and worms in your compost. They are doing their job to help break down the pile. When it is fully composted and dried out, the critters will go away.
• Add food scraps to the center of pile and cover with compost debris to encourage the pile to heat up while discouraging rodents from eating the food scraps.
• Avoid putting lawn or other clippings to the pile if they have been treated with herbicides.
• To help jump start a slow pile, try adding garden soil, steer manure, compost, fresh grass clippings, and/or alfalfa pellets.
• If your pile seems too wet or smells like ammonia, add more brown material such as wood chips (not sawdust), shredded paper, straw, and/or twigs.

Making your own compost not only saves you money, but it also helps the environment while creating a sustainable garden for you. And you will find that your plants are healthier, stronger, and more drought tolerant as well.

If you have questions or problems on your composting journey, please feel free to contact the community garden at info@gardenbytheseaoceanshores.org. We are always happy to help if we can!

This article was originally published in the December 2023 issue of the Ocean Observer.